On August 31, 1945, U.S. Gen. of the Army Douglas MacArthur took over command of the Japanese government in Tokyo and established the Supreme Allied Command.
By Phil Kohn. Dedicated to the memory of his father, GM3 Walter Kohn, U.S. Navy Armed Guard, USNR, and all men and women who have answered the country’s call in time of need. Phil can be contacted at ww2remembered@yahoo.com.
On August 31, 1945, U.S. Gen. of the Army Douglas MacArthur takes over command of the Japanese government in Tokyo and establishes the Supreme Allied Command Headquarters there. Occupation forces build at the rate of 300 troop-carrying planes per day. In China, the Nationalist Army takes control of Canton.
The U.S. Office of War Information on September 1, 1945, releases a report dealing with an expected world-wide coal shortage which is “of such proportions as to leave untouched no home or industry in any country,” with particular reference to the situation in Europe. Gen. of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, ends military rule in the Philippines; control of all areas of the island nation reverts to the Commonwealth government. The 742-man Japanese garrison on Minami-Tori-shima, an isolated coral atoll in the northwest Pacific, about 1,150 miles southeast of Tokyo, surrenders to officers from the destroyer USS Bagley. The island had been bombed repeatedly by U.S. Navy planes beginning in 1942. The U.S. and Finland resume diplomatic relations.
Representatives of the Japanese government sign the articles of surrender on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2. The signing is witnessed by representatives of China, the U.K., the U.S.S.R., Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the U.S. President Truman declares September 2 to be V-J Day in the U.S. but adds: “It is not yet the day for the formal proclamation of the end of the war nor of the cessation of the hostilities.” In Vietnam, the Viet Minh, a communist and nationalist liberation movement led by Hồ Chi Minh, promulgates a declaration of independence from France and expresses the unity of the country from north to south as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Hồ Chi Minh becomes president. In London, the government ends press censorship.
With the official Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945, and the earlier capitulations — by Italy (on September 8, 1943) and Germany (on May 7, 1945) — (most of) the active fighting against the Axis has come to a halt. But hostilities continue, and the U.S. — although civilian restrictions are eased — remains in a state of war.
Under U.S. law, when Congress declares war (which it did against the three main Axis nations in December 1941), the nation remains at war until either Congress — usually through legislation upon conclusion of a treaty of peace with the belligerent nation — or the President — via a proclamation — declares the war terminated.
Around the world, the shooting continues in many places — most prominently in China, where the Communists and the Nationalists vie for government control, but also in North Africa, the Middle East, southeast Asia and Korea. Old, pre-war frictions continue and, often, flare into violence. Anti-colonial trends around the globe heat up. And nations jockey for position in the new world order. Then, too, the world must deal with the aftermath of the recent global conflagration. With neither Congressional legislation nor a presidential proclamation ending it, the war — by law, for the U.S. — goes on. And, so, we continue to document the activity.
At Baguio, on Luzon, Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita surrenders Japanese forces in the Philippines on September 3. The surrender is accepted by U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, the American commander who had to surrender to the Japanese at Corregidor in 1942. (Wainwright — the highest-ranking American POW of the war — had been held captive by the Japanese in the Philippines, then on Formosa and, finally, in Manchukuo until August 1945, when he was freed by the Soviet Red Army.) Wainwright, emaciated and severely malnourished from his incarceration, is flown in specially to Baguio from Tokyo for the ceremony.
Japanese Emperor Hirohito on September 4 asks his people to cooperate in setting up a peaceful post-war state. The 2,200 Japanese troops on Wake Island surrender when they receive official word of their country’s capitulation. Chinese Communist forces under Gen. Chu Teh, commander-in-chief of the (Chinese) Red Army, begin a general offensive to disarm surrendering Japanese troops and take control of all Chinese territory currently in Japanese hands.
Singapore is officially liberated by British and Indian troops, who go ashore on September 5. In Japan, Iva Toguri D’Aquino, a Japanese-American suspected of being wartime radio propagandist “Tokyo Rose,” is arrested by Allied forces in Yokohama. In Washington, the U.S. State Department announces that the Japanese government ignored 19 American protests of atrocities committed against U.S. troops.
Japanese forces in the southwest Pacific surrender to the British aboard the aircraft carrier HMS Glory off the coast of New Britain at Rabaul on September 6. In Germany, Gen. of the Army Dwight Eisenhower, military governor of the American Occupation Zone, ends press censorship. British occupation troops arrest 44 prominent Ruhr industrialists.
In Berlin, an Allied victory parade is held on September 7. In Canberra, Australia, the government ratifies the United Nations Charter.
The U.S. 1st Cavalry Division enters the main part of Tokyo on September 8. In Korea, American troops continue to occupy the southern part of the country, while Soviet troops occupy the northern half, with the line of demarcation being the 38th Parallel. The arrangement proves to be the indirect beginning of a divided Korea.
Japanese authorities in Nanking, China, on September 9 sign surrender terms for over one million Japanese troops in China, Formosa and French Indochina. Japanese forces in Korea are surrendered at Seoul. Some 600,000 Japanese troops, including about 150 generals, are reportedly being held as prisoners by Soviet forces in Manchuria (Manchukuo, under the Japanese). Japanese naval forces in the Dutch East Indies surrender to the Australians at Morotai, in the Moluccas, while Japanese land forces surrender to the Aussies at Timor.
In Japan, Gen. MacArthur on September 10 orders the dissolution of the Imperial general headquarters and imposes censorship on the printed press and radio. In Oslo, Norway, Vidkun Quisling, the Norwegian Nazi leader, is sentenced to death. British troops land near Port Swettenham, Malaya, to enforce the Japanese surrender.
The Batu Lintang internment camp in Sarawak, Borneo, is liberated by Australian troops on September 11. Freed are 1,392 Allied POWs and 632 civilian internees, including 237 women and children. Found in the camp are “death orders” detailing how all the POWs and civilians were to be executed on September 15th. Portugal states that it is reasserting its authority over Portuguese Timor in the East Indies. Forty prominent Japanese are arrested for war crimes. When U.S. military police arrive at his home to arrest him, Hideki Tojo, Japanese prime minister for most of the war, attempts suicide to avoid facing a war-crimes tribunal. He shoots himself with a revolver just below his heart, but the wound is not fatal. After blood transfusions and administration of penicillin at the American hospital at Yokahama, his condition improves. The U.S. government designates “World War II” as the official name for the just-concluded international conflict. (Accordingly, the hostilities heretofore known as “The Great War” become “World War I.”)
In Singapore, on September 12, British Admiral of the Fleet Lord Louis Mountbatten accepts the surrender of all Japanese forces in southeast Asia. Nationalist Chinese troops take control of Shanghai.
Japanese forces in Burma and on New Guinea formally surrender on September 13. In Germany, British military authorities publish a captured Gestapo “death list” that targeted 2,300 British and Allied notables, including Winston Churchill and the leaders of the French, Polish and Czechoslovak governments-in-exile. Free French troops and Indian and Gurkha soldiers of the British Army arrive in Saigon and free the Vichy French garrison (who had been imprisoned by the Japanese). All three forces — British, Free French and Vichy French — join in attempting to drive the Viet Minh out of Saigon. In the north of Vietnam, 150,000 Nationalist Chinese soldiers arrive in Hanoi after looting Vietnamese villages on their march from China. They proceed to loot Hanoi as well. In Germany, the Soviets establish a “German government” in their occupation zone; three of its eleven “directors” are communists.
